Analysis / Americans Hate Tingle

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A little more information on general trends that might cause Americans Hate Tingle. Please note that these are general trends, and are not absolute.

A good example of this in action is Japanese animation. Anime is, on the whole, a medium with a niche level of acceptance even in its native Japan (aside from family sitcoms like Sazae-san and blockbuster kids' shows like One Piece). But certain countries and regions have a tendency to reject some character types, genres, or even the medium itself, nearly completely.

Anime and Japanese Media in General:

For instance, anime has a low acceptance level in the Netherlands, where it is often pejoratively referred to as "manga-movie" (this is a little ironic considering its proximity to Germany and France, places where anime tend to be extremely well-received). While international successes such as Spirited Away or kid-friendly shows such as Pokémon got more acceptance in that country over time, there exists still a sort of "animephobia" around the medium. Or rather, pure mindless fear towards anime in the way only a phobia would do. There's also a sexual angle to this; in the 1990s, people believed most anime consisted entirely of sex and violence. It really does not help that it had a rather limited fan base coming at a time when teen slasher movies and live-action shows were really popular. This made of anime an easy target for hate and controversy as the intended audience would prefer. Now though anime is starting to get a Dutch audience that tries to break that ideal, with plenty of organizations there to make Japanese pop culture more accessible to the Dutch audience that organize weekly conventions. It is also a good explanation for why in Belgium Japanese media such as anime and manga only started getting popular in the 2000's and The New Tens, since most Belgians were never really able to watch anime before that period came along.

Ex-USSR countries have issues with anime, probably due to the huge technical & aesthetic differences from the animation they grew accustomed to under the former Soviet regime. While there have been anime booms, mostly of the Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball franchises, most anime that aired there was perceived as controversial and was quickly pulled by TV stations. Due to this, most of those networks refuse to air them and prefer to air Live-Action TV or Western Animation. That said, older children's shows, such as the anime adaptations of Maya the Bee, The Moomins and The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (all based on European source material) are very popular, but they aren't regarded as anime by most people. Despite this, vocal anime subcultures do exist there, and fans are very active in their own circles, both online and at conventions. Note that this only applies to Japanese animated media and manga — most live-action productions, but mostly Toku, are near universally regarded as Z-grade trash or Snark Bait at best, and have no unified fandoms to speak of, no matter how popular they might be among Western geek circles (compare this again to Germany, where Kaiju films enjoyed brief success back in the day, and have a small cult following). This includes franchises that otherwise became big pop-cultural sensations, like Ultraman or Godzilla — Toku in general is niche across the globe, but Japan's superheroes and monsters fared extremely poorly in the Eastern Block and the Soviet Union, to the point where they remain barely known to this day and entice incredibly harsh knee-jerk reactions from people. Anime on the other hand (and to a degree Dorama), though lacking mainstream acceptance and having next to no market, managed to establish a dedicated and interactive viewer base.

Character Types:

In Japan, dark and angsty young guys (especially pretty ones) tend to be well-liked by audiences, often per their perceived mysterious and deep characteristics. Elsewhere, especially in North America, such traits tend to be associated with the Emo trend, hence the backlash that characters like Sasuke cause in the States.

Male characters that look pretty instead of manly and have hair that makes them look even prettier tend to be extremely popular in Japan, but are usually loathed everywhere else due to the different cultural values over how a man should look. For example, Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 has long bleached hair and a somewhat feminine/boyish looking face while Kratos from the God of War series is hugely muscular and has a goatee. This is more pronounced among the male part of the fandom, especially when it comes to view point characters or characters you are meant to relate to and especially when it comes to characters you are meant to play as. The Raiden example mentioned above was intensely disliked by American fans that enjoyed playing as the older and less “pretty” Snake and who did not want to take the role of what they saw as a significantly less macho player character. These characters can still have an intense female fandom in the west, although there are subtle differences in how they are perceived. Compare Pretty Boy to Bishōnen for more information.

Cold, logical, by-the-book characters tend to fare much better in Japan then they do in America, Toshiro Hitsuguya of Bleach being a great example. This is probably due to Japan's culture (shared by most East Asian countries) of obedience to established authority versus America's tradition of being the exact opposite of that. This might be why Metroid: Other M is so controversial with the Western Metroid fanbase; Adam and Samus' relationship is nothing more than acknowledged obedience, authority, and order for Japanese players, but for Western players, they see it as dysfuctional, with Samus being weak willed, submissive, and/or has some deep sexual/parental issues with Adam. In contrast, a Cowboy Cop would be less liked in Japan.

Yamato Nadeshikos and other "traditional" moe character types are the Distaff Counterpart version of the above, being liked in Japan (though still not as much as tsunderes) but not so much in the West; Westerners tend to find them boring and, in some cases, sexist for promoting women being submissive and obedient. The Moe criticism from the West gets worse when the Token Mini-Moe trope is applied on females (due to pseudo-lolicon and pedophilia implications). Because of this, Moe anime or any anime with lolis are less likely to get dubs.

Lolis are widely hated in the western fanbase, mainly because of implications of pedophilia and sexism, and the fact that a large majority of loli characters are there just to appeal to the lolicon fanbase. It also doesn't happen to note that a large majority of works that have lolis as the main character are often seen as bland Little Sister HeroineNice Girl characters. Hence, this is why many anime with lolis are part of the main cast such as Black Bullet, Kantai Collection, and many Manga Time Kirara titles have received negative receptions and are often widely hated among the fanbase.

The Tsundere character type is highly criticized and not well liked in the West (American men prefer women to have a reason for snapping at a guy she secretly likes; otherwise, it looks as if the girl has a mental disorder, like bipolar or manic-depressive schizophrenia), although not as severe as the negative reaction to the Moe archetype.

Genre Issues:

The imouto (translation: "little sister") genre of anime/manga/light novels, etc. is well liked in Japan, but in the West it's seen as the low point of otaku pandering, and admitting you're a fan is considered among some segments of the fandom as equivalent to calling yourself a pedophile (or at least a creep).

Sports anime, which are popular in Japan and extremely popular in Latin America, have historically sold very poorly in North America; sports manga does only slightly better. There have been a number of reasons proposed for why this happens: First and foremost is that anime fans in North America carry the stereotype of being young nerds (no shock considering many of the early adopters and originators of the fandom started as fans of Science Fiction), which due to the highly stratified social ladder extant among youth of the region means that the two interests are often violently incompatible. Also, sports in North America (especially the United States) is much more organized and professionalized, even at the middle school level, than in Japan; as a result, the bar for even being accepted onto a team is much higher and thus the fewer North American kids can identify with the experience (plus the Japanese system comes off as hilariously quaint). Finally, the minority of anime fans who do enjoy sports have expressed a preference for watching the real thing. Every once in awhile, though, a sports show can make it out of the doldrums. The New Tens has seen titles like Free! and Haikyuu!! achieve some degree of popularity, mostly due to its Cast Full of Pretty Boys appealing to the increasingly-important female segment of the fandom. Also, sports shows revolving around swords, like Bamboo Blade, are exempt from this trope because they have that "samurai" feel that North Americans tend to love.

Pretty much anything with a Dutch dub also tends to fare very poorly in Belgium. This can be partially be attributed to the fact that despite the fact that Dutch is spoken in both Flanders and the Netherlands, the dialects between the two are radically different, to the point that several media in both countries tend to lampshade that phenomenon. This has grown to such an extent that in media whose dubs are mainly handled in the Netherlands (such as Anime), English is by far the most preferred option by Belgians, to the point that they are repulsed by anyone that enjoys media in a different language than it (or the language the original was released in).

Video Games in General:

Western mobile games tend to perform poorly in Japan. Even massive franchises such as Clash of Clans, Angry Birds and Candy Crush Saga have relatively cold reception over there. The main reasons are poor localization efforts (i.e. text patch of the English language version), lack of in-game event mechanic and almost non-existent advertising.

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